A sadly familiar demand for RESPECT is on exhibit during the #ASEAN2017 Summit in Manila

Lately we’ve been seeing many perverse senses of entitlement exhibited by — horrors — some of the Philippines’ most influential people. That’s thanks to the on-going Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit currently being held in Manila. Whilst, the event brought out the best in the attending world leaders, it seemed to not have brought out the best in some of the self-appointed “thought leaders” of its host nation.

The items in the list of self-entitled behaviours on exhibit is quite familiar. Some of these influentials loudly espoused the notion that Filipinos are unconditionally entitled to the cash dole outs of rich Western nations for no other reason than that they need the funds. Others loudly preached their belief that credentials and large social media followings alone automatically makes one the go-to person for international journalists seeking insight on Philippine politics. Still others demand that politicians’ PR sideshows be genuine and represent authentic care for the Filipino babies they kiss and the fastfood crew members they schmooze with.

There are as many flavours of these demands Filipinos make of the international community as there are “thought leaders” who make a name for themselves issuing them with righteous indignation expressed with pompous verbosity. Ultimately, however, what underpins all these demands is a sad demand for respect. This, it seems, is the lowest common denominator that binds Filipino “activism” into the shrill bundle of noise that it is today. We demand for respect for credentials, respect for our neediness, and respect for our identity.

When it comes to the topic of respect, it seems Filipinos are overdue for a reality check.

Respect is earned. In a free world and its consequentially free and competitive markets, respect is earned by making one’s self a valuable asset to others. So the question Filipinos need to ask themselves is quite a confronting one:

Of what value are Filipinos to the rest of the world?

The answer to this question is what Filipino “activists” need to bake into their rhetoric. Rhetoric underpinned by neediness and entitlement simply does not resonate in an international marketplace that is rapidly growing more and more efficient at directing capital and attention spans towards what is relevant and value-yielding.

So when “professional activist” Renato Reyes pumps his fists in the air asserting that Filipino sovereignty be respected, he needs to put himself in the shoes of his “imperialist” bogeymen and ask his own movement “What’s in it for us if we do?”

When certain “major” bloggers wave pointy fingers on the faces of journalists and demand that their vast social media followings and university creds be taken into consideration when interview subjects are being selected for a TV appearance, they need to put themselves in the shoes of these “evil” mainstream minions and ask their own chattering lot “Are you really that newsworthy?”

When certain social-climbing social media mavens presume to educate us about how “impromptu” visits to fast food restaurants by fresh-faced politicians are really just “staged”, they should put themselves in the shoes of the “followers” they address and ask their shrill community, “Do we really care what thoughts are behind that smiling face?”

Empathy is often regarded by these lazy-minded “activists” as a gift of the righteous to the needy. But, really, empathy is a two-way street. For those who have command over the highest pulpits, it is about a really basic principle of competitive mass communication: understanding your audience or, more specifically, empathising with the perspective they take in deciding whether to pay attention to you or not.

Those leftists are just power hungry people and they don’t care on how to fix our own backyard. They just make more protests, anarchy & violence in our land, they should be deported to North Korea where they belong & help the lunatic Kim Jong-Un to build & develop his nuclear toys. THEY’RE NOT THE REAL FILIPINOS TO MAKE PROGRESS IN OUR COUNTRY!!! And since they’re commies & if our country will become a communist state, our daily lives in here will become even worst than before just like in North Korea, the former Soviet Union, Mao-era PRC China &… Read more »

I saw them burning an effigy of Donald Trump for being a ‘fascist’ but I want to tell them that they’re just nothing but butthurt Hillary Clinton supporters and buddies with crybaby SJWs and and praising violent leftist groups like Antifa and Black Lives Matter.

These Eternal Protesting whiners can shove it in their entitled throats and their impotent rage, and the constant advertising of their system of Governance that has never worked in it’s century of existence and only created hundreds of millions of suffering and death. And Renato Reyes should stop using any “Foreign Imperialist” -made products, It’s amazing these Champagne Socialists can keep doing selfies with Apple products and the no self-awareness of their lack of knowledge of basic economics, they just want everything to be magically given to them, it’s not like that idiot Reyes posted a picture of himself eating… Read more »

How can a country, that sends its people, as OFWs slave to the world have respect ? We ourselves, have no respect to ourselves, by letting these political leaders steal from us, and get away with it. Do you think that, former COMELEC Chairman Andres Bautista, who rigged the 2016 election, with his SMARTMAGIC machines, and got rich with billions of pesos, as his rewards has respect for himself ? He is now rich and enjoying his loot…after being forced out from his job. Do you think that the Aquino Cojuangco families, who stole the Katipunan Fund, and stole lands… Read more »

@Hyden007Toro9999.9999 And you know why that 99% of the world didn’t respect us? Is that because of our bad culture & attitudes of the Filipinos. You know, we have lack of discipline, crab mentality, lack of political will, we couldn’t love our own country, etc., etc. And Heneral Luna was right, the main enemy of the Filipino people is not the foreigners who’d conquered our land (e.g. the Americans, Spaniards, Chinese, Japanese, Arabs, etc., etc.) but ourselves!!! Damn it! Hopefully our country will not cause a civil war in the future but if that’ll happen, then goodbye Philippines. 🙁

We should thank to our policemen who’d sacrifice their lives for bringing tight security at the ASEAN 2017 especially when they stand against those leftists who did nothing but make their rallies on the streets & after that, they’ll sniff drugs, become a riding-in-tandem gang, play a mahjong or jueteng, drink more beer & other alcoholic drinks, etc. They even use this high tech acoustic device known as LRAD against them & its very effective! HoR to order probe PNP’s use of long-range acoustic device against protesters. And that should be a huge lesson to them and I wonder where… Read more »

A MOOT POINT made in the last paragraph as: who cares what someone thinks as they make such a decision. A decision made is the responsibility of the decision maker, not the witness to the decision makers.

It’s the same attitude as when Jojo Binay went into Dasmarinas Village shouting to the guards who accosted him, “Do you know who I am?” Filipinos seem to feel like they’re special that they deserve special service from other countries. “Shower me with praises, call me beautiful, give me what I want!” Why should they do so? “Because I am a Filipino! Don’t you know who I am?” That’s the very reason our country is still in the pits.